ESPN's Michael Wilbon tees off on NFL

With the NFL now owning 10 percent of ESPN, it's fair (and necessary) to keep an eye out for any indications that ESPN is going easy on the shield.

If so, Michael Wilbon didn't get the memo.

Via Sam Neumann of Awful Announcing, long-time ESPN fixture Michael Wilbon teed off on the NFL on the issue of player safety during an appearance on First Take.

“No league lies publicly like the NFL," Wilbon said. "No entity in this country lies as thoroughly, as convincingly, and as successfully as the NFL to try to sell, ‘We care about health and player safety.’ They do not. . . . It’s a lie. It’s a fraud. It’s the NFL, and people aren’t going to call them out on it, usually. People just want their football, and whatever the NFL is selling, we as a culture will buy it. . . . Don’t ever say to my face if you’re an NFL executive or a club executive, ‘Oh, we care about health and player safety. You do not."

It's a fair opinion, delivered honestly and without compromise by someone who is now indirectly paid by the NFL. At a time when it sure seems as if ESPN is tiptoeing around the Mike Vrabel-Dianna Russini situation on its umpteen TV networks, it's gutsy.

And it's possibly going to become rare. Especially this week. On most ESPN platforms, the message will be everything is awesome! with hosts and analysts leading the cheers in lieu of pointing out the warts.

There's a place for both. Moving forward, it will be important to constantly monitor the balance between the sugar and the spice when it comes to ESPN's handling of the NFL.

And, please, spare us the lazy, middle-school argument that anyone who criticizes the NFL doesn't like football. The reality for many of us is that we love football enough to want it to be fully worthy of the time devoted to watching it, consuming it, and covering it.

Like many, I was indoctrinated into pro football by the pedestal on which the NFL put itself through NFL Films. It's not too much to expect the league to continuously earn it.